Lawyers Share Their Most Undefendable Client Stories (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

lawyers of Reddit what was the least defendable case ever brought to you a woman wanted me to sue her previous lawyer for charging her a lot of money but producing almost no work to justify his fees she gave me what she told me was the lawyers total work product a page printed off the internet for which she said she was charged thousands of dollars for legal advice she had already brought a claim via my jurisdictions disciplinary body for lawyers she had lost and wanted to bring an appeal the judgment kept referring to documents that I hadn't seen I pushed her to give me everything and she came in with multiple files full of immaculate legal work that totally justified the fees she was fighting we told her to get lost but she wasted a lot of my time before we realized she was full of sh t did you charge her no I suppose we could have but we were ultimately refusing to take her case or carry out her instruction so we thought it best to just get rid of her also she was crazy crazier than my account above sets out she was paranoid and possibly mildly delusional charging her for the work would have perhaps been cruel this guy murdered his father than during the trial he sent death threats to his mother genuine question don't you feel weird defending someone who murdered somebody like your job is to reduce the time he spends in jail right the obviously guilty ones are easy you do your best to ensure the process is fair and just and lawful and if you still lose the system worked it's the innocent ones that you lose sleep over so this guy ordered a pizza no where was it specified that the delivery was supposed to be done under 30 minutes but the guy assumed that because movies the delivery arrived one hour later and to apologize even if it wasn't necessary they brought him his order and an additional beef pizza the guy wanted our firm to sue them because he is Hindu doesn't eat beef and apparently felt offended and x200 be also this one time this dude wanted us to sue his neighbor because he assumed the guy was practicing black magic a lady was sacked by a large company they had caught her embezzling money to fund a gambling habit they had clear evidence the embezzling had occurred and she did not deny it she sued the company for $300 zero zero zero for unfair dismissal my sister's firm represented the company against this woman the case was so easy the firm gave it to my sister as her first ever solo attempt my sister screwed it up badly not only did she lose the court awarded the woman $500 zero-zero-zero instead of the $300 zero-zero-zero she asked for in the end it was a good career move the partners all knew her name and dropped into her office one by one to offer their sympathy what did she do I mean if there's evidence into confession WTF I'm not entirely sure I know she botched the negotiation for a settlement and then she must have made a serious mistake during the proceedings and really irritated the court not my client but my dad at the hospital he worked at was sued by a gentleman after he saved his wife's life details patient is pregnant with a child and miscarries the fetus is removed but the patient starts bleeding uncontrollably the only option available is a hysterectomy it was either that or she dies right there on the table my dad gets called in to do the surgery performs it successfully array the patient's husband is quite devout and beyond peace said that his wife can't have any more kids so he sued the hospital no firm would represent him and he ended up bringing proceedings himself went all the way to trial and he lost hard my dad got sued once because the hospital forgot to rotate the patient and she got bed sores she comes in to his office and he's like what the hell I can't treat you as a patient while you're suing me she's like no I'm not why would I see you after you saved my life he's been her doctor for 30 years - she makes some calls turns out her kids sued him for pain and suffering not on her bit to them so she lost her doctor she trusted because of her kids normally the doctor gets dropped at a hearing because this is really the hospital's fault and it's common for them to see you everyone and see what sticks nope they didn't he had to go to trial for it he won but here probably my client charged with statutory are pay multiple counts who impregnated his high school sweethearts daughter after having a sex with said daughter from the ages of 13 - 15 he was 35 at the time of the birth DNA in the form of a baby is strong evidence for the state just wondering but how do you deal with somebody so horrible can you refuse to take it not a lawyer but I've worked with legal defense teams I deal with it by reminding myself that I'm not supporting this at horan behavior but that I am protecting their right to a fair trial my dad had a client who was on trial for being a felon in possession of firearms possession of stolen property burglary and distribution of narcotics guy had multiple pictures of himself on Facebook holding guns drugs and cash and had videos of himself both breaking into someone's house and stealing a gun as well as selling crack on several occasions despite my dad basically telling the genius he was going to prison either way and to plead out for a reduced sentence dude still pleaded not guilty we still occasionally joke that the guy clearly wasn't competent to stand trial by virtue of being so dumb I don't understand people's fascination for posting their crimes on Facebook boron's validation they want people to look at them and think wow he's so cool he's above the system the cops can't stop him and since cops aren't on his friends list there is no way that they would be able to trace his illegal actions through the internet not a lawyer but I feel bad for Y&W Meli's lawyer dude wrote three songs about murdering someone murders two people in his vehicle drove them to the hospital and said it was a drive-by the shell casings of the bullets were in his car cell phone GPS pings him at the murder scene he said he'd murder them in text messages and the dude pleads not guilty I imagine that if you take a job like that you probably have to disconnect emotionally and just play the part as if it were a speech and debate exercise then after your client of course loses you go cash your paycheck a guy wanted to sue God because it was unfair to blame the rest of us for Adam's poor choice I read about a guy who tried to sue the devil for making him commit crimes the judge threw it out when the man couldn't prove the devil lived in the judges jurisdiction I represented a tree-trimming company that went to the wrong address and cut down all the mature trees in that yard the right address was 100 North xx xx Street and the company went to 100 South xx xx Street and just went straight at it hacking away I still have no idea why the insurance company didn't just settle that one presumes worked in house for a famous character company with a large fanbase a few crazies a year : a guy called in claiming that we stole characters that he created and demanded to be compensated I calmly asked them to provide more details so I can determine whether this has any merit to it he states he designed the characters himself and gave it to the well-known actual creator when he was a kid and the Creator porn then offers his own I asked him when he was born and it's a good 20 years after these characters were actually created I asked him to explain this and he pivots and says he also created some other well-known famous characters and brands characters and brands that are not owned by my company I kindly ask that if he wants to pursue anything to send us something in writing and hang up I figured if he wasn't going to do some really basic research on his own claim he wasn't going to spend any time to write it out never heard from him again not a lawyer I was a jailer and used to pull double duty as a ballast a guy stole a pickup truck and was later captured passed out behind the wheel parked on a sidewalk surrounded by a ludicrous amount of nooks and Gump's his legal-defense be elected to represent himself because he wasn't done being stupid double jeopardy you can't charge me for theft drugs and felon in possession of a weapon because I've already been convicted all of those charges before in short during his jury trial he admitted to doing it but explained with a smug grin that since he had already done time for the same charges from another case before that he could not be prosecuted for them ever again this is not how double jeopardy works folks he's in prison for 20 years now if he'd taken legal counsel he could have easily cut a deal for five some of my colleagues have regretted taking cases with difficult clients typically those clients would keep sabotaging their own case by doing stupid sh t during litigation but it seems like you're looking for a lawyer who has some sort of moral aversion to the crime the client committed upfront when you take the case you know what you're getting into so most lawyers with any aversion would decline to take it upfront as opposed to regretting it later on any specific cases I had a client like this a real estate guy who decided to get into government at a lot of investigations going against him but instead of letting his lawyers do the talking he kept tweeting random nonsense about the cases tried to take his phone but somehow he always gets a new one can't keep his mouth shut somehow he hasn't ended up in prison yet I read a patent and told my bosses it was both invalid and infringed by no one it had ten means four elements in each patent claim that no one would practice all that weren't supported in the written description partners my bosses neuter patent litigation Sudan the patent anyway using young inexperienced unseasoned attorneys in the firm three years later after billing the client millions of dollars every defendant won by proving each claim either not infringed or invalid then my employer appealed and billed the client another ass load of money with a young attorney in charge of the appeal that didn't understand the underlying issues on any level because he was a former teacher instead of patent attorney it was such a bad patent no one would settle at any point in the case my bosses were blood sucking trolls I quit for these and similar parallel reasons the firm finally imploded it's like a hundred way tie for first place spoiler alert they had Fettig syndrome less frequently it was a gun and yeah let's just say the I have a permit defense for the latter was not something we had to worry about round those parts you'd be surprised how quickly cases become at least theoretically defensible as soon as you establish any distance whatsoever between the client and the contraband though in fact I'd say there's a systematic bias in jurors and lots of inconsistency in the relevant case law about how difficult it is and or ought to be to prove possession beyond a reasonable doubt it is of course in favor of the prosecution I had a client who won just shy of a seven-figure settlement in a personal injury case she then dropped into my office to ask me to file a fee dispute against the attorney who represented her in the personal injury action that attorney took a little over two hundred and sixty dollars zero zero zero on this case if you're doing the math at home this guy took a twenty seven percent fee on the type of case where 40 percent fees are common did a freaking fantastic job because the woman got nearly a million dollars and then she turned around and tried to sue him to recover any of his fees I rejected the case out of hand and then got an ethics complaint for discrim eighteen against her not a lawyer but I was a witness to an assault a few years back had to get up in the box and be questioned terrifying anyway it was on a night out hanging around outside a club a female friend of mine took exception to some dude grabbing her ass both start slinging insults at each other until the guy decides to sling his fist at her face instead right in the presence of three police officers who witnessed the whole thing and arrested him immediately the guy for some reason denied it all despite being caught literally red-handed by the Popo and it had to be resolved in court how would you even argue on his behalf worked in family law in California for like two years before deciding I'd hang myself if I didn't change career paths in CA the obligation to pay spousal support alimony ends when the recipient begins cohabitation with a new romantic partner a guy who was positively getting flicks in half in his monthly payments came to the office and said he was aware of the rule about cohabitation and wanted me to argue his point in court you see his ex was a narcissist she was in love with and had begun cohabitation with herself her presence in her apartment should count the same as if there were a romantic partner there he was bordering on begging me to take his money I refused not a lawyer but here's the most amusing time I had while being an expert witness to tell the court about chemical risks without naming too many details and faking the chemicals name it was about a small group of workers suing their very very large corporate employer foreign safe working conditions with hydrogen chloride so I confirmed I didn't know these people and wasn't or hadn't worked for the company said sure I'll do it and when off i sat there answering a lot of super leading questions what is this substance is a dangerous to do exceptionally stupid action what would happen if you drank it poured it over your head do you say that hilariously insufficient protection is enough to handle hydrogen chloride etc etc etc that took about 3045 minutes after which I had just about sweated through my suit even though I wasn't even on trial the defense steps up and go thank you for answering all those questions we would like to remind the court that the substance in question is not hydrogen chloride but says in fact sodium chloride could you briefly sum up the risks in working with sodium chloride a man once came to me wanting to sue someone for the wrongful death of his brother but he couldn't keep his story straight he said that his brother had been strangled while fishing so I asked if the police had apprehended the murderer then he told me that there wasn't a murderer that's why he wanted to sue for wrongful death I asked him who he was suing and he told me he wanted to sue the jeweler who made the ring what ring well the ring bat made him strangle his brother I politely declined and contacted the police as soon as he left my office they apparently chased him into the mountains but never found him not a lawyer my husband sat on a jury in case regarding the defendant taking payment 4sx the police had hidden in a wardrobe to prove the defendant was a toss to suit they may have witnessed the SX but not the payments if any as the couple went downstairs after the act he successfully got the rest of the jury to give a not guilty verdict I think it's super freaked up that prostitution is illegal in so many countries like seriously people are gonna pay for sx no matter what criminalizing this is just some holier-than-thou [ __ ] II a lady didn't pay her general contractor upwards of $20 K after the job was finished because of a dozen or so minor complaints like he was slow told her she should pay and we could help her with her complaints else you will probably be successful getting a lien on her she didn't pay he got a lien on her home even offered to help her stash the funds in escrow pending their dispute and would prevent a lien in the meantime no my best guess is that she didn't have the money and was attempting a tantrum to get out of it this was my 1l internship literally the first person to ever approach me in a legal capacity later that fall she showed up to my school and was demanding my info from the front office who handled it well and I never saw her she blames me for losing her home I told you to pay or you lose your home you didn't pay and lost your home surprise Pikachu face I have a relative who's a lawyer she worked for a hospital on a wrongful life case that was pretty miserable plaintiff had given birth to a baby with very severe congenital deformities plaintiff sued every health professional she saw while pregnant claiming that if they had told her about the deformities she would have aborted quick look at medical records shows that the plaintiff never really pursued prenatal care she went to a local emergency room very early in her pregnancy to get a pregnancy test apparently common in impoverished communities and she returned to that same IDI a month later with abdominal pain the IDI doc did an ultrasound on her belly in determined the fetus was not in distress but he did not do a thorough exam because he wanted to figure out where the belly pain was coming from not to an organ scan like an OB would but he sued that hospital then she was arrested for check fraud and saw a physician in jail but he didn't tell that doc about her pregnancy so he didn't do an ultrasound at all but she sued whoever provides that health care the jail a B dot just a sad sad case at the hospital won handily not me but my dad's lawyer my dad's ex-wife decided that they were getting on with divorce proceedings fast enough and decided to make a move one my dad was at work and we were all at school so she locked my little brother in my room the only one they did in touch and called over 40-plus people to take whatever she thought was hers so pretty much everything including furniture old music and pictures from before she was even around close bracket I show up to the house to pick up my little brother and it's empty I don't know what she thought was gonna happen when she possessed many things that were obviously my dad's like pictures of just me and him all the computer that he bought through his job at Dell my dad sued her three times and won every time she just got caught laundering money from the summer camp she worked it into my old Boy Scout Troop that her son is was now in Frick her interestingly enough my dad just remarried to a district attorney I'm a paralegal local guy in his twenties decides to go rob his dealer he got the wrong apartment and the college girl opened the door he shot her in the face and fled she laid there for hours just out of reach of her cell phone and listened to it ring while her mom called she lived a neighbor found her now she's paralyzed from the neck down and her face is very deformed this is a small town during the trial the jury was shown just how strung out on dope she was and how he even bragged to a few friends that he shot someone that's pretty damn hard to defend he got forty something years the girl that drove him to and from the apartment was also given jail time dead in his sixties hadn't been paying child support for decades and he owed more than $60 K for two kids who were adults now he was basically living at a farm in the middle of nowhere so no one could find him he worked for cash so the money could not be garnished from anywhere he then came into an inheritance which was deposited in his bank account and promptly confiscated by family maintenance he wanted it back I got sued for $50 0 0 0 by a man who claimed his arm was broken when he sideswiped my car at 2:00 a.m. he both got a DUI and he was also cited for going the wrong way on the freeway , my attorney determined that the guy had been to the dr the day before the accident and had received treatments to his broken arm he was charged with filing a false police report and some other charges ended up doing 90 days in county lockup I paid my fine did the required procedure to get my license back and learned my lessson guy wanted me to sue the city because the city took too long to bust his neighbor's illegal garbage disposal business guy claimed his neighbor's house had mice because of the garbage truck that was parked there when it wasn't hauling garbage he said the neighbors mice were causing his house to have mice reducing the value of his house so he couldn't sell it I asked him how long he had been trying to sell his house he said he wasn't trying to sell it yet I asked him what he had done about the mice so far he said he called the city to have them get rid of the mice but the city refused I asked when he reported the neighbors illegal garbage disposal business he told me he never reported it the city just told the garbage truck after the neighbor was arrested for some unrelated crime DUI I asked the guy how he knew all this and he said the neighbor and him were partners in the illegal garbage disposal business and his neighbors old lady told him about the arrests in the toad garbage truck civil trial attorney here at a case where two employees went out after work and got drunk one of them hit and paralyzed someone on his way home employee went to jail etc the only issue in the civil case was whether they were still acting in the court and scope of their employment until they got home if so the company would have been the curiously liable we filed a motion with the court arguing that they were not as a matter of law and that the other side could not raise any tribal issue of material fact that they were we lost that motion case settled soon after I didn't think a jury would have liked that one and on the other side now what kind of Court would find post workplace drinks a tortious act that your employer could be vicariously liable I might add some facts for you one he was driving a company car to marketing and socializing were part of his job three they had done it before and expensed it legally it's complicated and I'll have to answer that question either poorly now which I won't do or when I have a bit more time to draft a proper response but basically the issue is more complicated when you give them a car and when they don't clock in and out not a lawyer but when I worked at a call center for AT&T a dude called in and threatened to sue us because the technician was servicing his wife probably trolling but he wasn't giving me a super hard time and he actually let me transfer him to our legal department not sure why you'd troll if you're not going to be an ass about it that's too funny go to be a troll if he's not upset about it I mean he was upset but relatively calm about it I've had people threaten to come find me and throw me out of a window over their internet issues so this dude was being reasonable about it I just figure if I'm going to troll someone over the phone with that accusation I'd be playing it up a lot more than he did he sounded like an older dude so idk could have been legit we were defending a hostile workplace claim I'm speaking with the manager who allegedly threatened violence against the plaintiff I tell him one of the allegations is that he threatened to kill the plaintiff during his annual review manager says no way all I did was opens desk drawer and place his pistol on desk in front of me was put this gun on the table it wasn't even pointed at him as a former public defender I'd say roughly 50% of the cases assigned to me were completely undefended all because of some combination of video evidence police wear body cams where I was practicing multiple credible eyewitnesses my clients name and driver's license on a pawn ticket for stolen goods or my client just straight-up admitted to the police they did it I didn't want to get into specifics because of attorney-client privilege but I had a few clients who at our initial meeting would say they were innocent it's all a big misunderstanding etc then I'd show them a video of the police busting in their trailer client is on top of his so beating the sh t out of over two children under five present then fights with the police and ends up get tased and piecing himself we could have won that one if only being on lethal amounts of bath salts was a defense I was sitting in court waiting to be called in a guy before me was arguing that after a fight in the street he went home to get ready for a job interview with a forestry company and that explained why he was seen chasing the guy who he'd been fighting with ten minutes before down the street with an axe and a zombie knife it was 11:00 p.m. he couldn't find the confirmation of his job interview and he was on CCTV running down the street screaming he was going to kill him all in all his lawyer just stood there and asked that they take a brief recess to talk my sister was an EMT late one night he came up on a wreck on the highway and pulled over to help she was driving the ambulance a drunk driver had hit the jersey wall the [ __ ] arrived later the driver concocted a story that she gave him a bottle Jack Daniels while in the back of the ambulance to calm his nerves not only did she have to go to court to dispute this stupid story she had to go three times due to continuances he lost I'm not a lawyer but my father is and this was his first case basically this man was accused of murder and in his defense he claimed it was self-defense turns out he intentionally murdered a man so his wife could do black magic although he didn't tell this to my father and the evidence is only showed up at the actual judgment this is my favorite story of a crime ever my cousin was grass fighting a wall when the police showed up he proceeded to throw a bag of Method B officer to impede him grab the officer's bike and took off on it they are tracked and led straight to his house but he refused entry and had a standoff from memory here were the charges damage to public property possession of a prohibited substance with intent to distribute theft impeding a law officer resisting arrest and a few others that they just tacked on because honestly he was 100% flicked anyway so why not additional info when he got out of prison on good behavior parole he was brought back within two weeks for fraud when he started scanning through Amazon [Music]

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Keywords: reddit, askreddit, top posts, r/askreddit, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, askreddit top posts, ask reddit, subreddit, reddit stories, reddit tales, funny reddit, best reddit posts, best of reddit, askreddit new, askreddit stories, reddit story, askreddit funny, reddit best, funny posts, funny askreddit, r/, reddit funny, emkay, updoot, toadfilms, updoot reddit, storytime with reddit, people of reddit, reddit reveals, reddit lawyers, court stories, court, legal advice

Id: 7kNxUkwHvkY

Length: 29min 37sec (1777 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020